There seems to be this fandom wide idea that his choice to go to the Ministry was reckless. That he was so desperate to be useful and so sick of being cooped up with nothing to do, that eventually he couldn’t fight it anymore and went to fight along with the other Order members, even though he’d been told again and again not to. And that that was what led to his death.
And here I was thinking he died because he was in a fucking battle with Death Eaters.
You know who else risked their lives that day? Literally everyone there. Everyone who showed up made the conscious choice to protect Harry and his friends, even at the cost of their own lives. Every member of the Order made the choice to protect anyone from Voldemort and his supporters. Any of them could have been hit with a Killing Curse, or fallen through the veil, or tripped down the damn benches and broken their neck. And they all knew it was a risk, but they rushed to the rescue anyway. Wow, what a bunch of reckless idiots! Except no, they were doing their damn jobs.
What’s more, “dying in a battle against Death Eaters” (or “falling through a mysterious veil in the Chamber of Death”) wasn’t even what they were trying to protect Sirius from. He had to stay inside because the authorities were looking for him to deliver him to the Dementors. The Death Eaters knew about his disguise so there was nowhere he could be sure he wouldn’t be noticed. If he had lived, and then right after that been recognized and seized by the authorities, THEN you could say “told you so. You didn’t listen and what they said would happen, happened.” But. It. Didn’t.
When he went to the Ministry he had no intention of hiding (from the Death Eaters at least. Maybe he would’ve hidden from others, but only if it didn’t stop him from contributing to the fight). And why should he? None of the others there managed to hide their identities. They basically made themselves future targets for Voldemort. They risked it, because it was the only right thing to do. Even if Sirius hadn’t been Harry’s godfather, or hadn’t cared about him at all. When you’re a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry fucking Potter and a bunch of other teenagers are under attack, and you have nowhere else you need to be, joining the fight is THE ONLY RIGHT THING TO DO.
This is why it irritates (and confuses) me when Dumbledore says that Sirius was the kind of man who couldn’t sit idly by while others fought, and too old and too clever to let Snape’s taunts get to him. It implies that he went because he was made to feel useless, rather than because someone incredibly important to him needed help. This line of thinking can be expected from Harry, who is grieving and desperately searching for ways things could have been different, for someone or something to blame. For Dumbledore to humor that is honestly kind of bizarre to me? I get that he only said it because Harry brought it up first, but the way it was phrased made it sound like those were his reasons. Does anyone honestly think that’s how people work? I am 100% certain Sirius would have gone if he were free and content in his ideal home.
It also made it sound like he was still under orders to stay inside. If that’s true, I’d very much like to know the rationale behind that. Why would Dumbledore value Sirius’ life more highly than the other Order members’? The only reason I can come up with is that maybe it was important to keep Harry happy? But obviously it’s way more important to keep Harry safe, and that’s what Sirius was doing. So I honestly can’t imagine a logical scenario where he was told to stay inside that night. It just makes no sense. So either Dumbledore had no problem with him going, and oddly didn’t make that clear in his conversation with Harry, or Sirius WAS still supposed to stay inside, in which case the Order needs to get their weird shit together.
Long story short, saying that Sirius died because he was reckless enough to leave the house is like saying that someone who died in a car accident died because they placed too much importance on going to work.
Personally I think Dumblemumble wanted Sirius to stay out of the picture because Dumbledore doesn’t like people who challenge him. It’s not just that he was quick to blame Sirius’ death on his own supposed recklessness five minutes after he died, which is just in poor taste, and also tells me that Sirius didn’t mean much to Dumbledore either way; his death left him pretty cold. The fact that he phrased it so positively (“Sirius wouldn’t have idly stood by” etc.) just means Dumbledore is a gifted diplomat who knows how to phrase things in a way that make his argument impenetrable. The last thing he needed is for Harry to start thinking that Sirius’ way of approaching authority was an admirable thing Harry should try to imitate. But Dumbledore also would refuse to accept Sirius’ authority as godfather any number of times, for example when he assigned Snape to be Harry’s Occlumency mentor which very much was something Sirius was not okay with. However, it’s Sirius’ job to make those decisions. The only reason he couldn’t insist was because he was a convicted criminal in hiding, and Dumbledore was free of brushing his wishes aside, which is a disrespectful, mean and shockingly petty thing to do for somebody of Dumbledore’s standing.
Getting way back to 1981 when Sirius went to Azkaban pretty much solely because Dumbledore was called as witness and said, “Sirius was Secret Keeper” rather than “I was told Sirius was Secret Keeper but I don’t have a way of proving it and actually, James and Sirius tended to go off and do their own thing all the time,” I’m gonna go on a hunch and say that Sirius used to make a habit of question authority, and this is a pattern of Dumblemumble not being okay with that. He likes keeping Sirius out of the picture. As far as Dumbledore is concerned, Sirius is bad news. Sirius is a democrat where Dumbledore wants to be a monarch.
Additionally to that, I’m with those people who’ve pointed out that the Wizarding world has no concept of PTSD or depression being disease, so Dumbledore also neatly was at liberty of pointing at Sirius’ shows of discontent about being shoved aside and being treated like he wasn’t worth it, then calling that signs of a bad character. People like Molly and Snape were enthusiastic to jump on that wagon, of course. Molly, too, wants for Harry to stay passive and be nothing like Sirius, though to be fair to Molly, her motivation here is concern for his safety, and she sure does have a point when she wants Harry to be treated more like a child. So at this point the readers have two sympathetic characters telling us Sirius did wrong (the wise one and the wonderful warm motherly one), and then add Harry himself to the mix, feeling guilty and like he should have protected Sirius. The books give us pretty strong cues to tell us Sirius is reckless, but his behavior objectively says otherwise. (plus, his tendency to take action makes him a fantastic fanfic protagonist; just saying) In JKR’s writing, everything is always both a strength and a weakness. I’ve always been a fan of Sirius partly because if he was my friend, he’d come rushing into the Ministry to safe my ass, too, and I don’t know about you. But that’s a value I can really appreciate in a person.
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